Schizophrenia is a severe disturbance in thinking, behaviour and emotions. Symptoms are most likely to emerge between the ages of 15 and 25, as there is no single cause of the illness.
It’s time to bust the myths surrounding schizophrenia, because it just ain’t truth!
Myths!
Myth: Schizophrenia is a split personality
Fact: People with schizophrenia have ONE personality. The myth comes from the fact that the root of the word ‘schizophrenia’ means ‘split mind’.
Myth: People with schizophrenia are always violent
Fact: People who have schizophrenia are unlikely to be violent and are frequently the victims of violence. People with schizophrenia has more to fear from the community then the adverse, often on the receiving end of quite severe stigmatisation, misunderstanding and discrimination.
In actual fact, there is an increased risk of self-harm among people with schizophrenia and this is linked to the delusional thinking or the decision to ‘no longer cope’ with the illness.
Myth: People with schizophrenia are developmentally delayed
Fact: People with schizophrenia are NOT developmentally delayed! This myth came from treatment programs in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. During this period, people with developmental delay and people with mental illness were placed in asylums together and this is where the confusion comes from.
Myth: People with schizophrenia have low intelligence
Fact: People with schizophrenia are not low in intelligence. As with everyone in the world, there are variations in intelligence BUT this is not a characteristic of schizophrenia. In fact John Forbes Nash Jr. the winner of the 1994 Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences suffered from paranoid schizophrenia!
Facts courtesy of The Schizophrenia Fellowship of NSW
NOT SO 'MENTAL' 